My snow blower fantasy

For those of you who know me... well, you know I have a thing for power tools. It's probably an irresponsible expansion of my "carbon footprint", but if there's a way to add horse power, watts, volts - torque (I don't even know what that is, but I get tingly just saying it) - to anything, sign me up. If anyone ever invents a power twist tie for hefty bags, I'm there. Power spatula. Power squeegie. Power jello mold. Bring it on..

So it may shock you to know, a) I live in CT b) I don't own a snow blower. We still shovel or call in my neighbor, Phil, who owns a plowing business. Going on my seventh winter in the Northeast, every year I think this is the year and then I cheap out. I see the prices and think to myself - that's a lot of Phil.

If you've checked the national weather today, yup it's a snow day for most of the Northeast today. It's coming down pretty good as I write this, just starting to stick. Within a few hours, my neighborhood will come alive with the full throated growling of snow blowers. What I'd give to be out there with them... all that lovely, ahem, torque rushing through my body, loud, powerful and overwhelming al l my senses, snow exploding out of the top like a volcanic eruption of cold lava, falling along the sides of my drive and walk in drifts - soft, billowy and spent, the gentle hum of...

okay, okay.. i'm back! I'm back! Yeesh! Let me have a moment... before I grab my shovel.

Grab a tissue. This is what the rest of my day will really look like: shovel, wave to the kids watching me from the window, shovel some more, wave some more, oh s***! where'd they go, go inside and corral them back to the window so I can keep an eye on them, shovel some more, try not to bend over and wheeze too much it scares the kids watching from the window, almost done, shovel, uh, now I gotta sand, uh, now I gotta take off all this wet gear at the back door, clean up, kids are all over me because they missed me while I was outside, business as usual, hours and hours later after everyone's finally gone to bed and ache has set into every single muscle group and joint, a bubble bath? sounds great, but I don't have the energy to turn on the faucet and fish around for grown-up- lets- pretend- we're- at- the- spa bubbles and the watermelon scented sponge bob suds leave me cold, skip that, go straight for the Ibprofin, it expired three years ago, better take four then... okay, okay.. I'm back. I'm back!

But this time not for long, I fear..